++This post is from the first edition of my blog entitled You Are Here++

Written November 16, 2018:

As the first snow falls over the city, I am restless in the early hours of the morning. The streets are still, peaceful, and only the sound of distant shovel trucks disturbs the beautiful harmony between nature and concrete chaos.

I suppose there are several reasons to explain this restless energy. Every day, I feel my intuition become stronger. I’m still uncertain of what this means exactly, but I can definitely feel it. At the same time, I’m absolutely fascinated by how things tend to fall into place just as they should when you simply allow the universe to take its course.

Yesterday evening, I was given a tremendous gift.  I was handed a piece of myself that deep down, I knew was missing. It was my name.

To tie it all together, I should probably tell you first how the universe laid out this turn of events.

Part 1

When I was still a kid, I had learned that my given name, Phoebe, was chosen by my great aunt (the sister of my paternal grandmother). For years, thanks to the early days of the internet, I have known that Phoebe means bright and shining. It is the female derivative of Phoebus, who, according to ancient Greek mythology, was a Titan associated with the moon. My whole life, it has never been uncommon for people to misspell or severely mispronounce my name.  Although frustrating at times, knowing that my name is quite unique and meaningful, I have always been happy to be Phoebe.

When it comes to my Chinese name, however, it was never clear to me what significance it had. Pronounced “Yì Líng” (first a dipping tone followed by a rising tone), my Chinese name is not recorded on any official documents, nor am I frequently addressed by this name, unless when communicating about me to older relatives. For most of my life, I have always just accepted Yì Líng as it was, not stopping to question its origins. It was several weeks ago, however, in a conversation with my parents, that it finally occurred to me to ask them what it meant.

My mother explained to me that it was my grandmother (my father’s mother) who had given each my sister, brother, and me, our Chinese names. For all of her granddaughters, it was she who decided that we would all have the suffix “Líng” in our names, following – what I most recently learned – a tradition that is no longer widely practiced. Ok, but what did it mean? What was the significance of “Líng” and what was the significance of “Yì”?

My parents were not able to provide an answer. They wrote my name down, analyzed it, but could not get to the bottom of what I was looking for:

薏
玲

I’d have to ask my grandmother my mother told me. My grandmother, Li Fi Fong, passed away when I was 2.  Having this conversation was somewhat devastating. Neither my given nor Chinese names were chosen for me by my parents. Considering our somewhat difficult relationship as it is, I felt more disconnected from them than ever.  Whom was I the daughter of? I imagined myself as some celestial baby descending from the skies and landing on my parents’ doorstep. Whether sent from the heavens or rejected by an extra terrestrial colony, I wasn’t sure.

The only two people who might have more information, those who had chosen my names and who had bestowed the power and meaning of these names onto me, are no longer with us. I was left feeling a little empty inside, and quite sad in my own way.

– End of Part 1 –

Part 2

In the days leading up to Día de Muertos (the Day of the Dead), I was compelled to reconnect with my grandmother. Having lived several years in Mexico and continuing to share the culture with my partner and many friends, it felt right. I sat and meditated, wishing to connect with her. For the first time (there seems to be so many these days), I mourned the loss of my grandmother 30 years after her death. I mourned the relationship we never had. I mourned not knowing more about her, the woman who had given me my name. It was an intense but brief period. As soon as the strong emotions subsided, I took the time to recollect, offer my gratitude, and ended my meditation.

In the next day or two, I visited my parents’ house; not as part of my reconnecting ritual, but coincidentally because I felt the need for space having guests staying with us for an extended period of time.  I took advantage of my parents being out of town and stayed over at theirs for the night.

The house my parents still live in is the house in which I was born and grew up. It was the same house that my grandparents once lived in for some months while alternating between the births of different grandchildren. When they stayed with us, I was still very young and have no recollection of them except for one memory I have stored in my mind. In this memory, I can see my grandmother sitting on a small, wooden stool in our kitchen. She is about to prepare something in front of a large steel bowl and there I am, crawling at her feet.

As I sat at my parents’ kitchen table, I looked up at her portrait, which hangs next to my grandfather’s. Again, I called upon her and wished for some answers before heading to bed.

The following evening, I helped my artist friend Laura with a performance piece that shifted something deep inside of me (you can read more about it here). Now that writing this post is helping to put things in order, it seems like I definitely did get some answers that night.

– End of Part 2 –

Weeks passed and I had been meaning to get together with a friend in order to properly get acquainted. The few times we had crossed paths, our conversations were silly and short, but something told me that this person was worth getting to know. As we sipped tea and spoke about our lives, the topic of our names came up. She explained to me the origins of her chosen English name and spoke about why she absolutely hated the Chinese name her parents had given her. I, on the other hand, explained to her my own story.